to figure (something) out

Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 332: Profit and Loss.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast episode 332. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

Visit our website at eslpod.com and download a Learning Guide for this episode. The Learning Guide contains all of the vocabulary, definitions, sample sentences, additional definitions not found on the audio episode, cultural notes, comprehension questions, and a complete transcript of this episode.

This episode is a dialogue between Dolores and Anton. They’re talking about the money that their company makes or doesn’t make. Let’s get started.

Dolores: Manuel in accounting is supposed to help me with this report, but he called in sick today! I can’t believe my luck. He’s supposed to be training me in and he’s left me holding the bag.

Anton: Let me see if I can help.

Dolores: I’m supposed to use the information from this profit and loss statement to make some projections about the company’s future performance for our report, but I’m not sure what I’m doing. I need to plug in some numbers